C++ for beginners: An Introduction to escape Sequences

Escape sequences are special characters used in control string to modify the format of an output. These specific characters are translated into another character or a sequence of characters that may be difficult to represent directly. For example, you want to put a line break in the output of a C++ statement then you will use “\n” character which is an escape sequence itself.

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An escape sequence consists of two or more characters. For all sequences, the first character will be ”\” i.e. backslash. The other characters determine the interpretation of escape sequence. For example, “n” of “\n” tells the cursor to move on the next line.

New Line (\n):

When a new line is necessary in the output, then this escape sequence is used. For example:

cout<<”COMPUTER\nSCIENCE”;

First of all, “COMPUTER” is printed and”\n” shifts the cursor to the next line. Then “SCIENCE” is printed on second line. A screenshot of output is shown below:

C++ New Line (\n)

Tab (\t):

A TAB is equal to eight spaces. Whenever TAB button is pressed from the keyboard, then 8 spaces are left blank. This escape sequence performs the functionality of TAB key in the output stream. The code given below will insert a TAB between two words.

cout<<”COMPUTER\tSCIENCE”;

C++ Tab (\t)

As you can see after printing “COMPUTER”, 8 spaces are left blank and then “SCIENCE” is printed on the screen.

Alert Bell (\a):

This escape sequence is used to play beep during execution. For example:

cout<<”COMPUTER\aSCIENCE”;

First of all, “COMPUTER” is printed then a beep is played and after that “SCIENCE” is printed.

Backspace (\b):

Whenever we want to delete a single character, we press the button “backspace” from our keyboard. The same functionality can be achieved in C++ output with this escape sequence. For example:

cout<<”COMPUTER\bSCIENCE”;

C++ Backspace (\b)

First of all, “COMPUTER” is printed and after that “\b” comes which deletes the last character i.e. “R”. After that, “SCIENCE” is printed.

Single Quote (\’):

To insert a single quote in the output, this escape sequence is used. Look at the code written below:

cout<<”\’COMPUTER SCIENCE\’”;
This code prints single quotes at the start and end of the string.

C++ Double Quote (\”)

Carriage Return (\r):

This escape sequence moves the cursor at the beginning of current line. For example:

cout<<”COMPUTER\rSCIENCE”;

First of all, “COMPUTER” is printed and after that “\r” comes which moves the cursor at the beginning of the line and “SCIENCE” is printed which overwrites the word written before.

Carriage Return (\r)

Form Feed (\f)

This escape sequence is used in printing. It is used to insert a blank paper in the printed output. For example:

cout<<”COMPUTER\fSCIENCE”;

After printing “COMPUTER”, the computer will include a blank paper and then print “SCIENCE”.

Conclusion

This article helped us understand some of the important escape sequences in C++. This is a kind of information a C++ beginner is expected to understand and know.

This is a guest post by Kamal Choudhary:

Kamal Choudhary is a tech geek who writes C++ programming tutorials on his blog. He is a student of computer science in the University of Gujrat, Pakistan. He loves to write about computer programming. You can find his full bio here. Follow him on twitter @ikamalchoudhary